


Half of a Whole

by snakeling



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-14
Updated: 2011-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-15 16:20:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/162625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snakeling/pseuds/snakeling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ariadne and Arthur have to share pyjamas, a bed, and more...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Half of a Whole

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Anatsuno for the beta job!

Ariadne figures that they must have pissed off some deity majorly in a former life, or something, because it’s the only thing that explains the string of bad luck that’s been plaguing them since they left Tbilisi. The first plane took off three hours late, causing them to miss their connection; the second flight was bumpy enough that her dinner made a return trip; her luggage got lost; the hotel rented their rooms to someone else even though Arthur specifically called to warn them they’d be late to check in; there’s some sort of event in town and all the rooms are taken.

At least the hotel receptionist is properly apologetic and calls every hotel in the area to find them a room. She’s on her fifth call, and Ariadne is seriously starting to think that they might have to sleep in the street (or in the hotel lounge, which while better is still not the bed Ariadne has been dreaming of for the last hour).

The receptionist turns toward them, her hand on the microphone.

“The Royal still has a room for two, but there’s only a king-sized bed.”

Arthur glances at her for approval, and she nods. A bed! A bed she’ll share with Arthur! Well, yeah, not that anything’s likely to happen, but she can enjoy it for what it’s worth anyway.

Arthur bundles them efficiently into a cab, fare paid by the hotel. By the time they’re in the elevator to their room, Ariadne is more than half-asleep, swaying on her feet and filled with the overwhelming urge to lean her head on Arthur’s shoulder.

Once they’re inside, Arthur pushes her gently toward the bathroom. “Go have a wash. I’ll find you some clothes for the night.”

After showering, she washes her underwear in the sink. There’s a knock at the door, and when she opens it, Arthur is looking away and handing her a bundle of fabric. She’s actually disappointed that he didn’t even try to get a glimpse of her half-naked.

The clothes turn out to be a pajama jacket and masculine boxers. Ariadne feels a little thrill at slipping into Arthur’s clothes. The collar of the jacket smells faintly like his aftershave, and there is something extraordinarily intimate about wearing someone else’s underwear — not that she’s actually going to, as the boxers are too large for her and keep sliding down her hips.

She takes them off, and catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Teamed with the pants, those would be conservative pajamas. The jacket on its own, on her, is more than slightly provocative. She bites her lower lip, watching her reflection doing the same thing, takes a deep breath and makes a decision she hopes she won’t regret.

She knows she would regret not doing it more.

“The bathroom’s free!” she calls out. She goes to spread her underwear on the bedroom heater, bending a little, letting the jacket ride up her thighs, hinting at her buttocks and higher. When she turns around, she has the satisfaction of seeing Arthur’s eyes snap up to her face; he looks utterly pole-axed.

She hands him back his boxers. “They’re too big for me.”

He has to swallow before he can answer. “I see  . . . Uh  . . . I’ll— I’ll just go and have a shower, all right?”

“Of course,” she says brightly. She can’t help adding, “Have fun!”

Arthur walks into the door jamb at that. The night is looking up.

Maybe, if she plays her cards right, she can have Arthur where she’s wanted him ever since she’s met him. After that totally unexpected, so chaste kiss on their first job together, Arthur has never even hinted that he might want more than a professional relationship with her. She thought her desires one-sided, condemned to remain confined to fantasy.

But now  . . . Now the possibilities are endless.

When Arthur comes out of the bathroom, he’s wearing only pajama pants — actually, they’re sharing the pajama, which is such a post-sex thing to do that Ariadne feels cheated. He’s not muscled the way Eames is, bulky and solid, but he’s wiry and she doesn’t doubt his strength. His chest is not very hairy, except for a trail of dark hair running down from his navel and disappearing under the waistband of the pants.

Ariadne feels like walking into a few door jambs herself.

She pats the empty space on the bed invitingly.

“I’ve got some work to do first. Go ahead and sleep if you want.”

She rolls her eyes. “Don’t be stupid. It’s past midnight here, and 4 am Georgian time. You didn’t sleep last night, and you didn’t sleep on the plane. If you don’t sleep now, you’ll be utterly dead tomorrow.”

It’s probably testament to how tired he really is that he doesn’t even attempt a protest. He shoos her onto the other side of the bed, placing himself between her and the door, which she’s torn between finding utterly charming and annoyingly patronizing.

He’s rigid as a board besides her. Ariadne wants to cuddle, sprawl all over him, bury her face against his neck, but doesn’t quite dare.

“We can go buy you other clothes tomorrow,” he says suddenly.

She’d love to go clothes-shopping with Arthur, model a few sexy outfits for him, but . . .

“Tomorrow’s Sunday,” she points out.

He lets out a questioning noise.

“It’s France. Good luck finding anything other than a bakery open on a Sunday.”

“Oh.” After a few minutes, he says, “Newspaper stands are open.”

Her eyelids are drooping, but she makes the effort answering, “They still don’t sell clothes.”

“Hospitals, too.” She can hear the smile in his voice.

“Smartass. Now shut up; we’ll figure something out tomorrow.” She reaches out to put a hand on his mouth, but misjudges a little, and her hand ends up on his sternum. He’s warm and soft and now that she’s touching him, she doesn’t want to stop. Thankfully, Arthur isn’t protesting, and Ariadne falls asleep with his hand coming up to cover hers.

* * *

They wake up ridiculously entangled in the morning. Her jacket is riding up, her wet cunt rubbing on his thigh. He’s hard against her hip. One of his hands is stroking the naked skin of her lower back while the other is cupping her breast. Hers have dipped under his waistband.

Ariadne could stay like this forever.

Arthur, it turns out, couldn’t: the moment he becomes aware of their position, he backs up in a flurry of limbs that almost sends her sprawling on the floor.

“The hell?”

“Sorry, sorry. I’m— I didn’t mean to— to molest you.”

There are two red blotches on his cheeks and he looks deeply mortified.

“Sorry,” he repeats, before fleeing to the bathroom.

“The hell?”

Arthur seems to be belaboring under the notion that she wouldn’t welcome his advances. She must correct his misapprehension at once.

In his haste, Arthur forgot to lock the door, and she yanks it open. He’s leaning against the wall, grinding the heel of his hand against his erection in a way that looks more painful than pleasurable. His eyes fly open when she steps inside, and grow even wider when she takes off the jacket and stands nude in front of him.

She gives him a few seconds to stare at her. His eyes sweep down her body, lingering on her breasts and the brown triangle of her crotch. When at last he looks into her eyes, she walks up to him and pulls down on his head while standing on her toes, until their lips touch and they finally, finally kiss.

Arthur melts against her, stooping enough to devour her mouth. His hands start exploring, ghosting touches on her skin until she’s shivering with want. She can feel his erection wetting the front of his pants where they rub against her belly. Blindly, she pushes the pants down, careful to avoid even touching his cock.

When she finally takes him in hand, Arthur breaks the kiss, letting his head fall against her neck. She can hear him breathing erratically, hissing every time she does something he particularly likes.

“I thought you didn’t— you weren’t—”

“You thought wrong,” she says firmly.

“I can see that.” A laugh escapes him in a huff of breath.

“In fact, it would be better if you just stopped thinking at all.”

“Any time now, if you keep going.”

“Oh, I have a better idea,” she promises him, and slides down to her knees with a grin.

His cock looks — well, mostly a little bit ridiculous, as all cocks do, but beyond that — thick but not too long, cut, flushed red with blood. It leans slightly to the left, and Ariadne finds the imperfection too adorable for words.

The head is already shiny with precome, and Ariadne licks it, relishing the taste, bitter and salty. He slides his hand over her head, his fingers tangling in her hair, and she shivers all over at the caress.

When she takes the head of his cock in her mouth and starts sucking, he moans low in his throat and pushes slightly at her nape. His touch is light enough that she could throw it off if she wanted, but the truth is that she rather likes men who get all dominant on her during blowjobs, and so she lets him take the lead. She relaxes her throat and swallows and swallows until Arthur’s entire length is in her mouth, heavy and hot and at that instant the center of her universe.

After a few seconds, he fists her hair and pulls her off his cock. She only has time for a couple of shallow breaths before he’s pushing in again. She loves the feeling of helplessness that comes with having your mouth fucked, so she closes her eyes, lets him control the pace and depth, and just concentrate on the sensations.

She can feel how wet she’s becoming. Almost of their own accord, her fingers sneak down her body, between her legs, find her clit.

It can’t get any better than that, though she probably shouldn’t lay bets on it.

She’s close, so close, when Arthur gently tugs on her hair, pulling her off his cock. “ . . . Close  . . . I’m  . . . going to—”

He’s not too coherent, but she gets the gist. She thanks him mentally for the consideration, then sucks with renewed ardor on the head, her hands abandoning her clit to wrap around the base of his cock and his balls, alternately pulling and squeezing.

Arthur wasn’t lying about being close; he climaxes almost immediately, filling her mouth with his come. She waits until his hand slides off her hair before releasing his cock gently. She stands up, her knees cracking, and spits the stuff in the sink before rinsing her mouth.

“I’m sorry,” Arthur says.

She narrows her eyes at him. “Whatever for?”

“Coming in your mouth. I should have  . . .” His voice trails off as he moves his hand in what’s surely meant to be a meaningful gesture. Ariadne doesn’t care, as long as he’s not apologizing for the sex.

“It doesn’t matter, really. I hate men coming on my face, but I can’t swallow either, because, well  . . . no offense, Arthur, but it’s really gross.”

“Yeah, I’m not too fond of the stuff either.” While Ariadne is still parsing that sentence, he adds, “Women taste so much sweeter.”

With that, he hoists her up on the sink counter and steps between her legs. He grins at her, showing off his dimples and the laugh lines at the corner of his eyes, before sliding to his knees a lot more gracefully than she managed earlier.

And then nothing happens. When she looks down, he’s leaning back on his heels, looking at her like a spread buffet. She’s ready to yell at him to get a move on when he finally does. He nuzzles at the soft skin of her inner thighs, then licks and kisses and bites until Ariadne is sure he’s raising some spectacular bruises.

So far he’s avoided her cunt entirely, so she catches his head by his ungelled hair, and directs it where she wants it. He chuckles, muffled by her skin, and lets himself be moved, though she’s under no illusions that she could do it if he didn’t want her to.

Even now he’s a tease, delicately lapping at her when she wants him to fuck her with his tongue and his fingers.

“More!” Her voice is a lot more breathy and needy than she intended.

He doesn’t pay her any heed, going at his own pace, slowly driving her mad. He’s only using the point of his tongue, making her jerk her hips every time, and Ariadne has to grip the counter with both hands to keep herself from falling. He’s slowly reducing her to just sensations, and she can feel her brain shutting down all higher functions, one by one, until she’s mere putty in his hands.

Her climax takes her by surprise: she arches her back, nearly braining herself in the mirror behind her, and it’s lucky Arthur has such good reflexes he manages to catch her hips before they slide clean off the counter.

He stands up and smoothly takes her in his arms, carrying her back to the bed where he folds his body around hers as she rides up the aftershocks. He kisses her, tenderly, with none of the urgency of before, feathering light kisses on her mouth, her jaw, her cheek, her ear, her hair.

The absolute perfection of the moment is broken by both their phones ringing simultaneously. Ariadne bites a smile at the filthy look Arthur throws his. They lunge for their respective phone, and the brief moment when their skins don’t touch makes her ache with an intensity that’s entirely out of proportion with the actual event.

She doesn’t know the number calling her, so she answers with a tentative hello, while Arthur’s “Eames” is short and just this side of civil. Or maybe the other side, actually; it’s somewhat hard to tell with those two. She tunes out his conversation to concentrate on hers; the airline found her missing luggage. At the thought of having her own clothes back, Ariadne feels a spike of disappointment. Though maybe Arthur won’t mind if she borrows his, now.

She barely knows what she answers, because Arthur has started to stroke her breast, his thumb passing over her nipple again and again. She traps it with a frown until she’s done wrapping her conversation.

He smiles at her, impishly, the expression at odds with his words to Eames.

“You’ll just have to do without us for today. We just finished a difficult job, we’ve had a pretty horrendous trip yesterday, and there’s no emergency for the new job. We both need a day off. No, Eames, I don’t care. You do whatever you want; we’ll see you bright and early on Monday. You do that. Bye, Eames.”

He flips the phone closed and reaches blindly behind him to put it back on the bedside table. Ariadne releases his trapped hand.

“A whole day off, really? Now, whatever are we going to do to occupy ourselves, then?”

His grin, this time, is more than a little predatory.


End file.
